Very Slow upload/download speed of Firebase Storage
The Story
I am using Firebase Storage in my app to upload large files into the Firebase Storage. Files are mostly videos which can be even larger than 2 GB some times.
What I Have Done
This is what I have done.
UploadTask originalUpload = originalDestination.putFile(Uri.fromFile(originalSource));
mCurrentUploadTask = originalUpload;
originalUpload.addOnProgressListener(mOnProgressUpdateListener);
originalUpload.addOnSuccessListener(mOriginalSuccessListener);
Just to inform, I am also converting these sync tasks to async as I need to process everything in the background using,
Tasks.await(originalUpload);
The Problem
The problem is weird and unexpected. The upload/download works perfectly, but it is very slow.
I am on a good internet connection of 1 MBps but these files are never transferred at this speed. It is around 100-150 KBps which is almost 15% of the available speed of my network.
I have tested this several times and on several different networks before making this claim. Nowhere, I found Firebase making full use of the available bandwidth, whereas other non-Firebase downloads/uploads works at full speed.
My app needs to download and upload large files, and therefore cannot afford to transfer at such slow speeds. This was not at all expected from Firebase.
Please let me know if I am doing anything wrong in my implementation or if it is an inherent problem with Firebase?
UPDATE
I have also been experiencing an issue with only the uploads. When ever I am downloading something and I just turn off the Wifi, the download gets cancelled with this error.
com.google.firebase.storage.StorageException: An unknown error occurred, please check the HTTP result code and inner exception for server response.
Read error: ssl=0xb7e7a510: I/O error during system call, Connection timed out
javax.net.ssl.SSLException: Read error: ssl=0xb7e7a510: I/O error during system call, Connection timed out
at com.android.org.conscrypt.NativeCrypto.SSL_read(Native Method)
at com.android.org.conscrypt.OpenSSLSocketImpl$SSLInputStream.read(OpenSSLSocketImpl.java:699)
at com.android.okio.Okio$2.read(Okio.java:113)
at com.android.okio.RealBufferedSource.read(RealBufferedSource.java:48)
at com.android.okhttp.internal.http.HttpConnection$FixedLengthSource.read(HttpConnection.java:446)
at com.android.okio.RealBufferedSource$1.read(RealBufferedSource.java:168)
at java.io.InputStream.read(InputStream.java:162)
at com.google.firebase.storage.FileDownloadTask.run(Unknown Source)
at com.google.firebase.storage.StorageTask$5.run(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1112)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:587)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:818)
But when I do the exact same thing for uploads, it just waits for connection and if I turn on the Wifi again, it reconnects and resumes. Why does the problem only happen with downloading files? Is it a problem with getFile() API again?
FYI, I have not changed the timeout settings for both uploads and downloads. They are at their defaults.
Answer
I offer this not to refute your observations, but just as a point of comparison. As a test, I used the code below to upload a ~50MB file and time the progress. The test was run on a Samsung Galaxy S3 (4.4.2) with a home WiFi connection (in California). The average throughput was roughly 760KB/sec.
I ran the same test on other phone devices using the same network with throughput ranging from 300KB/sec to 850KB/sec (Moto X Pure; Marshmallow).
private void uploadTest() {
// This file is ~50MB
final File file = new File("/storage/emulated/0/DCIM/Camera/20160821_101145.mp4");
// Upload the file
Log.i(TAG, String.format("uploadTest: Starting upload of %5.2fMB file",
file.length()/1024.0/1024.0));
FirebaseStorage.getInstance().getReference("test").putFile(Uri.fromFile(file))
.addOnSuccessListener(new OnSuccessListener<UploadTask.TaskSnapshot>() {
@Override
public void onSuccess(UploadTask.TaskSnapshot taskSnapshot) {
Log.i(TAG, "onSuccess: Done");
}
}).addOnProgressListener(new OnProgressListener<UploadTask.TaskSnapshot>() {
@Override
public void onProgress(UploadTask.TaskSnapshot taskSnapshot) {
Log.i(TAG, String.format("onProgress: %5.2f MB transferred",
taskSnapshot.getBytesTransferred()/1024.0/1024.0));
}
});
}
This is the logcat produced, with some progress lines deleted to make the list more compact:
08-21 11:39:17.539 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: uploadTest: Starting upload of 51.79MB file
08-21 11:39:17.559 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 0.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:39:25.117 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 5.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:39:31.654 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 10.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:39:38.711 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 15.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:39:45.088 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 20.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:39:51.375 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 25.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:39:57.411 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 30.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:40:03.408 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 35.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:40:10.886 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 40.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:40:17.233 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 45.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:40:23.069 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 50.00 MB transferred
08-21 11:40:25.792 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onProgress: 51.79 MB transferred
08-21 11:40:25.792 18427-18427/com.qbix.test I/MainActivity: onSuccess: Done